Been walking through this pine grove for a long time now. These places are way longer than they look in the pictures. Just pine trees and pine trees and more pine trees that don't add up to anything. No point walking if the trees aren't going to develop. Better stay put and try to outstare a tree, see who laughs first.

So I made this joke about how The Miner is the exact opposite of The Alchemist. As Aubrey pointed out, it's not; whatever dimension you measure on, fact of the matter is that comparing any novel to The Alchemist is doing it both an injustice and a huge favour, and in the end doesn't really say anything. "This novel is better than utter shit!" Well, duh.

But the reason I made the comparison is because, well, the plot (such as it is) is a similar take on the tired old Hero's Journey. A young man, recently cut off from the life he knew, sets forth on a voyage of self-discovery, is guided by various older and wiser men (and women serving him food) and winds up discovering his true calling. But of course, The Miner not only does that plot well - the young man is an angsty fool, the wiser men are mostly out to make money or avoid trouble, and his true calling makes no attempt to pass itself off as a Deep Truth. In fact, the novel spends a lot of time denying it even is one.

"This is the door to hell," said Hatsu. "Got the guts to go in?"

That fantastic opening section has me transfixed, and at the same time explains why the novel is a bit tricky to get into. Soseki's nameless narrator very consciously wants to NOT learn; he sets out to eradicate himself, to remove himself from the world, which is harder than it seems - let alone to write a, for lack of a better word, novel about (nevermind in Japan in nineteen oh fucking eight). At times, he just rants for pages on the futility of trying to make sense of his own actions. Does he have free will? Does he get a choice in having one? He thinks he learns things, makes decisions, only to realise he's wrong on the very next page. Nobody learns. Nobody develops. There's no narrative arc: you go to the hole, you go in the hole. The trees just stare at Man.

Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of “character” or that kind of “character,” and readers pretend to talk knowingly about “character,” but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writing lies and the readers are enjoying themselves reading lies. In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don’t know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying.

And yet, try as he might to remove himself from the world, to bury himself in that mine everyone tells him he's too young and well-educated to work, The Boy (sorry) seems more to immerse himself in it. Soseki writes this fantastic sequence that leaves me gasping for breath, feeling the walls close in around me and the darkness descend, and forces me to find my own way out - or at least tell people I did. With no answers, but at least fewer questions.

I went outside and looked at the sky. It was filled with stars. Why were they shining like that? What were they trying to accomplish?